BRATISLAVA (Reuters) - Slovakia‘s new government celebrates its first 100 days in power on Monday having transformed the country‘s image abroad but still needing to convince analysts it can tackle problems at home. "It is night and day. The atmosphere has really changed. The country may have to wait a while to get back among the EU frontrunners. But what a difference," said one western diplomatic source. Prime Minister Mikuláš Dzurinda replaced Vladimír Mečiar, the man who led Slovakia to independence when Czechoslovakia split peacefully in 1993, after an election in September. Mečiar‘s crushing defeat was helped by a massive 84 percent turnout and was hailed in the West as a decisive victory for the forces of democracy. Mečiar‘s authoritarian style had turned Slovakia into something of a pariah in central and eastern Europe. The new government is a coalition made up of four parties including reformed communists, centre-leftists, an ethnic Hungarian party and the Slovak Democratic Coalition, itself an umbrella group comprising neo-liberals, Christian democrats, greens and social democrats. With such a heady brew of divergent viewpoints, the first question to be answered was whether the government would ever be able to agree on any-thing or, if it could, whether its policies would be so diluted by compromise as to be ineffective. Professor Miroslav Kusý, a political scientist at Comenius University, told Reuters the jury was still out. "These 100 days were used for the restructuring of government, the strengthening of people and parties in their positions. It was mostly used for internal things. The result is that policies have been oriented to the past only." The government has been working hard on the things it can agree on, particularly alleged misrule by its predecessor. Ministries have prepared so-called "black books" detailing abuses of power under the last government. The most controversial result has been the arrest of two members of the security services (SIS) in connection with the Kováč junior kidnapping and a request for the lifting of parliamentary immunity from former Interior Minister Gustáv Krajči and former SIS boss Ivan Lexa in order to conduct criminal investigations. Last week the government also declared invalid the privatisation of a stake in oil and gas storage firm Nafta. However, said Kusy, such moves could not substitute for the enactment of policies aimed at the future. The new government has had words of encouragement from the EU and NATO. But it has not yet been invited to rejoin the EU frontrunners and NATO expansion will go ahead in Slovakia‘s absence at the Washington summit in April. The most concrete foreign policy improvement has been a warming in relations with neighbouring Hungary. The government has pledged to push through reform of language laws to accommodate the 500,000-strong ethnic Hungarian minority, which often complained of unfair treatment by Mečiar. Hungary‘s prime minister Viktor Orban is due to make a state visit to Slovakia on Tuesday. Little has been done on the economy but ambitious plans have been laid. The government has promised to privatise a big stake in the state telecom company and wants to slash the budget deficit from five to two percent of GDP. Economists say they will watch with interest. "It‘s quite a nice aggressive plan…But what is not so easy is its implementation," said Ján Tóth of Tatra Banka.